


We'll beat a path through the mirrored maze

by heavenisalibrary



Series: Tumblr Prompt Fills [18]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-26
Updated: 2014-08-26
Packaged: 2018-02-14 20:42:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2202402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heavenisalibrary/pseuds/heavenisalibrary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Well, how was I supposed to know you’d get so close to the only plant on this planet that can cause short term blindness?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	We'll beat a path through the mirrored maze

**Author's Note:**

> prompt: river/doctor river is temporarily blind and the doctor has to look after her?

"It’s not permanent," he assures her, flailing about a bit before finally settling one arm around her waist. Actually, he extends it to hover vaguely above her waist and he knows she can’t see anything but she definitely rolls her eyes at him before he huffs and places his hand on her hip, pulling her awkwardly into him for support. "Well, it’s temporarily permanent — not permanent, permanent. At most a week."

"A week?”

"Possibly two."

"I will bloody kill you," she says. He’s sure this is the point she’d slap him, if only she could see. "I swear — fixed points or not, I will bloody kill you if this lasts two weeks.”

"Well, how was I supposed to know you’d get so close to the only plant on this planet that can cause short term blindness?”

"You didn’t have to predict it, you idiot," she says, "all you had to do was say something like, ‘why, River, best not investigate the local flora — _some of it will blind you._ ’”

"I’m sorry,” he says. “aren’t you an archaeologist? Shouldn’t native plants be in your wheelhouse?”

"You’re a doctor,” she mocks, “shouldn’t you know how to fix this?”

He rolls his eyes at her, and starts to lead her back toward the TARDIS, trying to ignore the way she mutters angrily under her breath. Honestly, he doesn’t know River that well yet — they’ve done, well, the times with his previous face and they’ve done the Byzantium and the Pandorica and Utah, and he knows that she’s all clever and quickness and distracting curves and smirks that make his insides do things, but he doesn’t know who she is, and that’s something that hangs over his head. He knows he likes to flirt with her, and that at the end of their adventures she expects a goodnight kiss — that he can do readily enough — but he still feels odd about the way in which her body relaxes into his touch as the walk. Not that they don’t touch — but he touches her like she’s a matchstick and if he presses to hard she’ll ignite. She touches him like she knows him by heart.

He also knows she knows he’s not really a Doctor, and so he chooses not to engage, and they make their way back to the TARDIS in relative silence. She snaps before he can when they get to the doors, and he scowls a bit to see the old girl so willing to accommodate River’s every whim as usual, but leads her into the TARDIS without a word. He helps her up the stairs and sets her in the chair by the console. When he steps back to look at her, he realizes that he doesn’t really know how to proceed. He scratches his cheek nervously.

"God, I can hear your nervousness, sweetie,” River says. “Stop fidgeting and help me to the kitchen. I could use some tea.”

"I’m not nervous,” he says. “I’m concerned. Concerned is not nervous.”

"Oh, please," she says, standing on her own and taking an uncertain step toward him — he takes a moment to smile a bit at the unusual sight of River Song looking unsure of herself before lurching toward her and wrapping an arm around her waist, more comfortably this time. As they walk, she continues to talk. "You’re probably out of that big old head of yours with nervousness — you’re not going to be able to be rid of me at the end of the night, Doctor. You’re probably thinking about how much linear time you’re going to have to spend with one person, how you’re not going to be able to get out of the TARDIS, how —"

“River,” he sighs, “I’m not.” He is, a bit, and she laughs as though she knows.

"You are," she says. "I know you young. Big ball of nerves. No idea what to do with your hands."

"I’m not nervous!” he says, a little too loud. The TARDIS moves the kitchen to the next door, and he silently thanks he as he leads River inside, and helps her onto a stool. It’s only once he starts making tea that he realizes what else she said. “And what do you mean about my hands?”

"You’re all fidgety young," River says, waving dismissively. "Don’t quite know where to put them."

"Is there a designated area for hands, then? A landing pad? A handing pad?” he asks sharply, glaring at her, even though she can’t see. He puts the kettle onto boil. She snorts.

"No, honey," she says, "but I can offer you a few helpful pointers if you’d like."

Her voice drops low and does that warm, sexy thing that causes uncomfortable situations at unfortunate times, and the Doctor blushes up to the tips of his ears. He busies himself taking out a couple of mugs and setting them loudly on the countertop before he turns back to her, sitting on the stool beside her.

"You can’t see a thing," he says, "how could you show me anything?"

She grins. He finds it sort of unnerving how she can’t seem to find him with her eyes, and he leans into her a bit to examine her more closely as she speaks. “I’m excellent at improvisation. Besides, it’s more of a practical demonstration than visual representation.”

He doesn’t respond for a minute — and only half because he doesn’t know what to say — but the other half is that he seldom gets to look at River. She’s so very dynamic all of the time, he rarely sees her in repose, and when she catches him staring she usually winks at him or makes some lewd comment that makes him blush terribly, and so he tries not to. He leans even closer, eying her face carefully. He’s noted it before, and often, but she’s really rather stunning. He loves the little crook to her nose and the laugh lines by her eyes and the gentle curve of her cheekbones. 

"Well?"

"Well… what were we talking about?"

River rolls her eyes. “It’s rude to stare.”

"How do you know what I’m doing?"

"I’m blind, honey," she says, "not stupid."

They fall quiet for a moment, and he continues to watch her closely, his eyes dragging across her face, down her slender neck to the lovely lines of her shoulders and clavicles, down further still, and his mind runs away with him a bit as he examines her. When he looks back up, she’s leaned into him slightly so their faces are terribly close, but he doesn’t want to pull away. “They say people only get this close to you if they’re going to kiss or kill you.”

"Who’s they?" River asks quietly.

"Oh, I don’t know," the Doctor says. "They. Them. Somebody, somewhere, sometime. So what’ll it be, River Song? Kiss or kill?"

River laughs, low and warm, and reaches out until her hand finds his shoulder. She runs it up and over to his neck, up his throat until she can trace a finger along the features of his face, oh-so-tenderly. He swallows.

"One day you’ll realize the great irony in saying that to me, Doctor,” she says, and then she kisses him. He’s vaguely worried about her words, but he files it away for later, and instead focuses on kissing River Song. 

They’ve kissed quite a lot, for him, but it’s yet to grow old. He finds himself thinking about it an awful lot, even when she’s not around, and even more when she is. She runs her hand up and into his hair, her nails scraping deliciously over his scalp as she tangles her fingers in it and tugs a bit. Her lips are soft and warm against his, and he stands from his stool to step even closer to her, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her into him until they’re both standing and kissing and his mind’s full of River and the very intrusive thought that the body’s other senses tend to grow stronger when one is eliminated to compensate for the lack, and he thinks about touching River — and about touching River — when she can’t see, especially after a few days, and the sounds she’d make. She makes the most delightful, needy whimpers into his mouth when he pulls her closer, and he can only imagine what she’d sound like if he acted on any of the twenty impulses running through his head. 

He slides a hand beneath her shirt and skates it up the bare skin of her back. She arches against him, groaning softly, and he turns to press her against the countertop. She smiles against his mouth as he pulls her closer, and he imagines she’d look very smug if he could drag himself away from her long enough to note it. Instead he leans further into her, overcome by the urge to touch every single inch of her, and her hands are just about done undoing his bow tie when the kettle whistles and they spring apart in alarm.

After a moment, they both laugh. The Doctor goes to fetch the kettle, and River leans back against the counter, humming low in her throat in a way that makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.

They discuss the tea for a moment, and he’s a bit glad of the reprieve, because he’s not sure what would’ve happened, or if he was ready for it, and she let him hide away in idle chatter about the origin of the milk as he brought it all over and placed it before her. He helped her mix up her tea before he found the wherewithal to broach the subject again.

"So," he says, "you’ll likely start regaining sight in about a week. We can have the TARDIS scan you to be sure, but you ought to be out and about in a week in a half. You’ll stay here, of course."

River’s looking nowhere near him, but the slight raise of her brows and small nod betrays her surprise. “Of course,” she says.

"We’ll finds all sorts of stuff to do in a week. Zero gravity room ought to be fun with sensory deprivation. There might be a texture room somewhere in here, too, that you’d probably enjoy — might as well take advantage while your other senses are in overload, yeah?"

She hums in agreement. “I can think of a few things I’d like to try.”

He tugs at the collar of his shirt nervously. “Sure. Whatever you’d like. The world is your oyster — or, well, the TARDIS is, not that she’s an oyster, strictly speaking. Sorry, dear.” He pats the countertop.

"Any suggestions where to start?"

The Doctor nods, reaching out to take River’s tea and setting it back on the counter. She looks quizzical as he steps toward her, crowding her and threading a hand through her hair as he places a kiss to her nose. “You said something about a practical demonstration, didn’t you?”

River’s answering laugh is bright and perfect and he wants to bottle it up and keep it for the rest of his life.


End file.
